Emily Forever by Maria Navarro Skaranger

Author:Maria Navarro Skaranger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 2023-12-08T16:08:41+00:00

EM CHOOSES A NAME

One day when Marewan was talking to her, his morning breath was warm and dense, she threw up.

That’s how it starts.

Then you’re waking up at nights to stuff yourself with biscuits.

Afterwards she goes to the chemist’s to buy a pregnancy test, and there, among the shelves, with her head down, because maybe she’s ashamed of herself or thinks it’s embarrassing (there’s always an element of shame in buying a pregnancy test), she eventually finds the tests in the section for intimate hygiene, alongside hair removal creams, condoms, menstrual pads, and suppositories. The chemist asks in a loud voice if there’s anything she can help her with, and Em says, I’m looking for a test, and the chemist, now a saleswoman, shows Em an expensive one and a cheap one. Are you familiar with testing, the woman asks with acne all over her face, her voice a monotone. Yes, Em lies. So you don’t need me to tell you what to do, the woman says. No, Em lies. She puts the test in her bag and decides not to think any more about it until the next morning, and doesn’t either, instead she drinks her last beer, or cider, because she doesn’t like beer. The red cider bubbles in her glass and Em thinks the baby must be a dark little squiggle that looks like a tadpole.

Shortly after that she pees on the tip of the testing stick, re-caps it, and looks away for as long as she can. Longer than five minutes. She paces the floor in the kitchen and when after eight minutes she removes the cap and sees the two coloured bands she isn’t filled with joy, nor with despair, but with a feeling that’s hard to put into words. Is it anxiety she feels? Is it indifference? Emptiness? Is that a feeling?

All her life Emily’s had dreams, big empty ones, blurred and unfocused, one thought shoving the other aside, after a lesson at school the only thing in her exercise book would be a big block letter with thick edges and a pattern of dots inside that she’d coloured in. And her teacher could then say to her mother at her parents’ night, after politely having asked Emily to go outside into the corridor, that Emily wasn’t paying attention, that Emily possibly had learning difficulties, even though that wasn’t the case.

Em dreams about the baby, she can already see herself, looking at her swollen tummy in the mirror with no clothes on, and she sees herself with a baby in her arms as well. But Pablo doesn’t want a baby (DREADING it already), they’ve got nothing in place, are they actually going to have a baby, is it going to live in this little flat? You can get pregnant when you want in a few years’ time, he says, I just don’t want a baby now, I’ll give you ten grand not to have it, and so on and so on, he says. After

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